


Just Water

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sham has his eye on Jacques-Rosé as a potential new vessel, but it doesn’t go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Water

**Author's Note:**

> on the one hand, I gotta stop making shit up about Rosetta; on the other hand, I'd stand behind this one without a lot of hesitation. I think this one can be pretty safely derived from the manga + 1935-A. On a third hand, who am I kidding, I'm absolutely going to keep making shit up about Rosetta.

On the surface, it didn’t seem like there was a lot to know about Jacques-Rosé Boronial. A meatpacker at the Union Stock Yard, he lived an ordinary life peppered with occasional efforts to play the hero. He had friends; he had a long-term girlfriend. He was a regular at Dolce, the Chicago restaurant where Sham had recently acquired a new—unauthorized—vessel.

The sole point of interest surrounding Jacques-Rosé was that he had _nearly_ been a passenger on the Flying Pussyfoot’s fateful journey in December of 1931. But instead of boarding, he’d come to Dolce with his girlfriend, telling tales of an elaborate, foreboding dream he’d had. A sheriff and a woman dressed like a dancer. A man with a sword tattoo on his face. Men in black suits and men in white suits hijacking the train.

The waiter—Sham’s new vessel—had found the story laughable, but Sham wasn’t laughing.

He wanted to know more.

And now, in Dolce, Jacques-Rosé and his girlfriend, Rosetta, had come in for a bite to eat. Sham-as-Charles sidled up to their table to confirm their usual order.

“Three orders of barbecue ribs?”

“You’ve got it, Chuck,” Jacques-Rosé answered with a grin. “Two for me, and one for my honey.”

“Right away. I’ll bring out some water to start with.”

Rosetta fixed the waiter with a smile. “Yes. Just water, please.”

“…Of course?” Sham’s voice went up with a question. For just a moment, there’d been something unsettling about Rosetta’s gaze, and it seemed strange to specify that they wanted _just_ water. It couldn’t be that—

Rosetta only tipped her head towards her boyfriend, a forgiving expression on her face. “He still doesn’t touch alcohol, 21st amendment or no,” she explained.

“Of course. Water it is.”

Of course that was all she meant.

Sham disappeared to the back, passed on the ribs order to the cook, and readied two glasses of ice water. Then, turning his back to the cook and shielding the view of the glasses with his body, he slipped a tiny vial out of his pocket. The liquid inside _looked_ like ordinary water—but it contained Sham’s very consciousness. A single drop of this slipped into Jacques-Rosé’s drink would turn the energetic young man into another one of Sham’s many vessels, and then there would be ample time to analyze his memories and puzzle out why he’d had such an accurate dream of the Flying Pussyfoot.

It was as simple as that.

There was no reason for Sham to feel regret or hesitation as he unscrewed the vial and positioned it over the glass. There was nothing to give him pause as he angled the vial and the liquid began to slip out. There was nothing to stop him, and yet—

Sham stopped.

He froze.

His mind, his consciousness, his very _being_ was frozen in place as though he had been transformed into a photograph. The only thing his mind could grasp was the way the drop of his liquid hung on the lip of the vial, defying gravity as it, too, remained frozen in place.

_Is something wrong_ , asked Huey of the vessel that had been mid-report, and _Sham? What’s up?_ asked Renee of another, and distantly he heard the same question repeated over and over with dozens and hundreds of different names, and above all of them—

**_I will_ eradicate _you._**

A female voice speaking directly to him, not to any of his vessels but directly into his consciousness, and with it the overwhelming weight of a world that would have been complete without him, a world to which he was foreign. He sensed, with a terrifying certainty, that it would be a simple matter for whatever was speaking to him to correct matters such that he would cease to exist.

The voice was one he’d heard before.

_Ro…setta…?_

And then time returned and he saw the drop of liquid fall through space to land in the glass of water, and horrified instinct sent his arm shooting out to knock the glass over. It fell to the floor and broke with a crash.

“Charles?” said the cook, and “Sham?” came Huey’s voice again, sharper this time, his eyes narrowed and the mechanical smile almost fallen from his face.

Sham’s chest—his chests—his vessels’ chests heaved as though he had only just remembered that they needed to breathe in order to survive. He needed to get control of himself. He needed an excuse.

“Forgive me, Master Huey,” he said, and he was relieved that the guard’s voice came out normally. “I think that one of my vessels may have just had a seizure, and it took me by surprise.”

“Ahh, hence the—” Huey moved his arm in a clear imitation of Sham-as-Charles’s motion to knock the glass over.

“Yes,” Sham lied. “I apologize. I will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” Huey responded, just as Jacques-Rosé burst into Dolce’s kitchen through the out door.

“Is everyone okay? I heard breaking glass!”

“I’m—”

Sham stumbled over the rest of the sentence, suddenly wary of interacting with Jacques-Rosé at all. He shoved the vial back into his pocket. But before he could warn him to stay away from the broken glass (and the droplets of tainted water), something yanked Jacques-Rosé backwards by the hair.

“ _Honestly_ , Jacques-Rosé!”

“Rosetta, ow!”

“Let them do their job. You’d just be in the way!”

Jacques-Rosé turned, considering her words, and then looked back at the waiter. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Sham answered, finding his voice at last. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’ll have your waters out for you in just a moment.”

“Just water?” Rosetta asked again, standing on tiptoe to look at him over Jacques-Rosé’s shoulder. She was smiling, but now Sham was sure that there was something else in it. Something that made this vessel’s heart pound.

“Just water,” he assured her with a firm nod.

“Perfect!” she said aloud, and inside his consciousness he heard **_Good_** in a voice dark with threat. Then her smile became normal and she gave one last tug on Jacques-Rosé’s hair. “Sorry about him. Let’s go, honey!”

He watched them go and then fetched a broom, slowly exhaling. A few miles away, he felt hands lifted to be examined. They were shaking.

“What the hell was that?” muttered Ricardo, voice too quiet to be heard by anyone but Sham.

_I have no idea_ , Sham answered, and for once he had no desire to seek out the knowledge he lacked.


End file.
